


rebellious birds

by la_victorienne



Category: Torchwood
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-10-25
Updated: 2008-10-25
Packaged: 2018-10-16 00:43:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10560504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_victorienne/pseuds/la_victorienne
Summary: jack died again today, and ianto is listening tocarmen.





	

It is opera, this time, when Jack turns his shining, shaking key in Ianto’s dark, confusing lock. French opera, rich and alive, with a vaguely Spanish ring, castanets and horns. He doesn’t understand the words – French is one of those things, like Windsor knots and the logistics of Pig Latin, that just hasn’t come back after millennia in the ground – but the sentiment is taunting, and Jack can’t help but hear a little of himself in the drifting, changing, sliding and circling song.

_L’amour est enfant de Bohême._  
Il n’a jamais connu de loi.  
Si tu ne m’aimes pas, je t’aime.  
Si je t’aime, prends garde à toi. 

“It’s a song about love,” Ianto tells him without looking, seated comfortably on the left side of the sofa, a glass of wine in his hand and the other spread out beside him. Jack smiles to himself, mostly, and hangs up his own coat in the hall before moving into the living room – smoother this time than the last, now that he knows the rules, the routine.

“I gathered that. Still only remember a little French, but amour I understand. What else does it mean?” Ianto smiles, moves his hand, and Jack sits, curling a close arm around the body next to him. It’s a measure of Ianto’s acceptance that he shifts to accommodate, rearranges his slender, dexterous fingers gently on Jack’s thigh, warm and sure.

“Love is like a gypsy child; he has never known a law,” he murmurs, almost in time with the music. “If you do not love me, I love you. But if I love you, beware.” He closes his eyes, listens a little more. “Which is ironic, since she – Carmen – is the one who dies in the end.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Jack replies, because it seems the appropriate response to a song that has Jack’s heart burning at its core. Ianto gives a small smile, eyes still closed.

“Not tonight, no.”

It’s a tacit acceptance and a welcome agreement – here, Jack is safe. Here, nothing will happen to him. Here, he will live and breathe and, thankfully, not die. He’s done enough of that in the past few days to last him a lifetime – or more.

It’s why he came here, to Ianto’s home, he is sure; why after a long day and a poor, surly attitude he chose to leave the Hub. To be – safe. To be protected. Ianto is protecting him from the sacrifice, from unwanted leadership, from heavy militarism and empty flirtation. He moves a centimeter away, suddenly wary. The last time they were here Jack was falling from the sky, trailing feathers and wax behind; can it really be so soon that he’s been caught, rescued, saved?

The answer, he soon finds, is yes.

Ianto’s fingers press lightly on his leg, drawing him back the wayward centimeter. Jack turns his head and opens his mouth to say something and finds Ianto’s lips on his, insistent and secure, impossibly perceptive. Jack has a hand on Ianto’s cheek and the wine glass falls, fortunately empty, on the rug, and Jack knows this pressure, flat on his chest, as he leans back. Glad to be the pushed, not the pushing. Shifting and sliding and somehow silent, and Jack’s never felt so secure than here with Ianto on top of him, kissing and holding, all clothes on. Legs tangled, Ianto’s arms holding him up, his fingers in Ianto’s hair, mussing the dark, ordered strands until they curl rebelliously in his hand – this is his safety. This place is home.

Alpha dog, in control, Ianto kisses to bruise, grips to mark. Jack is his, purely and completely, to have and hold, and what’s more, Jack himself knows it. He’s open, unhinged, eyes and mouth and heart blown wide, an island buffeted by Ianto’s gentle storm. Ianto is an assault, an attack, a battery of hope, adoration, devotion. A passionate healing. A forceful love.

The sofa is not all; Jack is almost completely mind out of body when Ianto brings him up, leads him to the bedroom, removes his many layers and lays him with tenderness in the fresh, crisp sheets. Hands against body he rewrites the memories of Jack’s skin, forces these revived muscles to understand their purpose and their future. Close, close, always closer, Ianto’s fingers write French words in the darkness then his wet, red mouth whispers them in Jack’s ear.

 _Mourir_. To die.

 _Revenir_. To come back.

 _Pleurer_. To cry.

 _Croire_. To believe.

 _Attendre_. To wait.

 _Entendre_. To listen.

 _Embrasser_. To kiss.

 _Baiser_. To fuck.

 _Venir_. To come.

And Jack does, crying out and truly crying, his heart a muscle-bone broken and reset, starting over. Ianto is there to catch him, to ease him down, to kiss his mouth and touch his cheek, tuck in the corners of the sheets and lay the coverlet within reach.

“But you,” Jack whispers, and Ianto laughs, tinkling and not unkind.

“Have an opera to finish,” he replies. “Try to sleep; you could use it. I’ll be in when I’m done.” Lips on forehead, on mouth, drifting and gentle, and then he’s gone, looking back once as he passes through the door, and Jack is left alone.

It is a few minutes later that his brain unearths the lost memory of this scene, roles reversed and bedroom smaller. Ianto is the one bruised and broken, a cleaver’s edge still too close to his throat, at the Hub because he has nowhere left to go. Jack remembers the sex, the forgiveness, the leaving. And waiting until he is sure Ianto sleeps before slipping down the ladder, just to watch the childhood come back to Ianto’s too-old face. A boy in his father’s well-pressed suit, Jack thinks.

“How different we are now,” he mumbles, before his worn face is smoothed with surprising slumber.

Ianto turns off the phonograph, stands in the doorframe, playing the memory to its logical end. There are so few words now – nothing is appropriate, nothing necessary – and his own thoughts swirl restlessly in compensation. Endings and adventures; inadvertent lies. Every time Jack dies Ianto truly believes it’s the last. Recklessness and carelessness – can he ever teach Jack that he is to be valued? One step at a time. One kiss, one touch, one smile. One day.

He sheds clothes quietly, folds and hangs and deposits in hampers where appropriate before sliding in next to the glory that is Jack, dark against his white, white sheets. They are dark and light, eternal and ephemeral, but they breathe in unison and that is all that matters. Jack turns into him without waking, bodies curling and twining with unpracticed ease. Ianto kisses the top of Jack’s head, lingers with his eyes closed, smiles sadly.

“Stay with me,” Jack mumbles.

Whether the words are in earnest or part of a dream, Ianto can’t bring himself to respond.

He can’t bring himself to lie.  



End file.
